More than a month after controversial immigration raids in Santa Cruz County by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), Santa Cruz Police Chief Kevin Vogel still wants answers.

Vogel and other officials from the SCPD say they understood the Feb. 13 operation as nothing more than effort to lock up gang members of the El Salvadoran gang MS-13. Upon learning that some undocumented people were detained for their immigration status, and some of them briefly taken into custody, Vogel emphatically stated that if he had known about the “immigration component,” the department would not have participated.

Vogel, who says this operation was his first time working with any branch of ICE, spoke with both Congressmember Jimmy Panetta (D-Carmel) and a staffer from Senator Kamala Harris (D-California) after the raids.